Stones Roses' self-titled debut LP is 30 years old today

[C-Man 27293]

The record is as good today as it was then -- and will be 30 years from now. Goddamn, what could've been ...

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/the-stone-roses-album-facts-16211906

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1. It might never have been...

Ian Brown started as a bassist, forming a Clash-inspired band called The Patrol with John Squire in 1980. However, the group quickly broke up and Brown is said to have sold his bass guitar to buy a scooter.

 

 

(Image: scu)

2. It came from school pals - Ian Brown and John Squire...

Long before the record, Brown, and guitarist Squire, attended Altrincham Grammar School for Boys together.

Both then moved on to South Trafford College, where Brown was expelled and Squire dropped out.

3. The name was about texture...

The name ‘Stone Roses’, which would also become the band’s greatest album, was suggested by Squire in 1983, allegedly as a tribute to the The Rolling Stones. It was also the idea that it would be a combination of both the hardness of stone and the softness of roses.

 

(Image: Unknown)

4. Six years before it was released, Brown couldn’t sing...

When the band first took shape, Brown, who had never before been a front-man, decided he needed singing lessons. In later years, he received severe criticism for his vocal performances.

5. It nearly wasn't their first album...

In 1985 The Stone Roses recording a number of songs for an album which was to be called Garage Flower.

However the band shelved it as they weren't happy with the production and range of songs. It contained some tracks that would later feature on the finished debut, such as I Wanna Be Adored and This is the One.

READ MORE

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6. The album that was later released was penned in a panic...

Despite some songs dating back to the band's early days, Ian Brown said many of the tracks were dreamt up in a hurry.

“We wrote most of the first album in a few weeks because we’d blagged the record company" he told NME in 2009

"We told Silvertone that we had about 30 or 40 songs, but we only had about eight.”

7. It was produced in three different studios...

The band recorded at Battery Studios at Konk Studios, both in London, while also spending time at Rockfield Studios in Wales.

 

It could have been produced by Peter Hook (Image: Eddie Garvey)

8. It was nearly produced by Peter Hook...

The Joy Division and New Order bassist had been at the decks for Elephant Stone, their first single on Silvertone. However 'Hooky' was had to jet off to record New Order's  album Technique, a must for Factory Records so he couldn't do it

9. It was actually produced by fellow music legend John Leckie...

By that point the producer had already worked with George Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Pink Floyd. The 64-year-old producer is still in the business and recently worked with Rodrigo y Gabriela in Mexico.

10. The album cover was painted by Squire....

Named by Q magazine as one of ‘The 100 Best Covers of All Time’ Squire claimed it was inspired by a Frenchman involved in the 1968 Paris riots - who Brown met when he was hitchhiking across Europe.

VIDEO LOADING

 

11. Tony Wilson was responsible for the back cover photo.....

The picture on the back of the album, shows the band performing live on TV show The Other Side Of Midnight, hosted by Mr Manchester himself,  Factory Records supremo, Tony Wilson.

Introducing them on the show he said he had previously 'seriously disliked' them for their 'rock ’n’ roll stance' but changed his mind after hearing Elephant Stone.

12. Ian Brown didn't actually want to be adored...

He may repeatedly say it on the song's legendary opening track, but Ian Brown was sceptical about being adored.

“If you want to be adored, it's like a sin, like lust or gluttony or something like that" he told Clash Magazine in 2009.

13. It swept up at the NME Awards...

On the back of the record, The Stone Roses won Band of the Year, Best New Band, Single of the Year and Album of the Year at the 1989 award show.

14. It made Liam Gallagher join a band...

“Without that, there would have not been Oasis,” said Noel Gallagher recently. “I don’t think Liam would have bothered joining Bonehead’s group, and subsequently I wouldn’t have bothered joining Liam’s group. They opened the door for us.”

 

Liam Gallagher said it made him want to be in a band (Image: Vincent Cole)

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15. It led to their first top 40...

The second single from the album, She Bangs the Drums, entered the charts at 36. In May 2007, NME ranked it number 12 in its list of the ‘50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever’.

16. It took a dig at the church...

The last track of the album, I Am The Resurrection, was a criticism of the Catholic Church which Brown referred to as the ‘richest religious religious organisation in the world’.

17. The Royals didn’t buy it...

The song Elizabeth My Dear caused controversy due to lyrics such as - ‘tear me apart and boil my bones, I’ll not rest till she’s lost her throne.’ At a concert in 2012, Ian Brown referred to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee as ‘60 years of tyranny.'

18. On some versions it featured their most famous song...

Signature track, the dance-infused Fool’s Gold, reached number eight in the charts and won Single of the Year at the NME Awards. It was meant to be the B-side track for What the World is Waiting For but became a hit after an outstanding performance on Top of the Pops. It wasn't on the UK issue of the album but was on the version released in the US and in some other parts of the world

 

Ian Brown at The Stone Roses concert at Etihad Stadium in 2016

19. It led to an amusing encounter with the BBC...

In 1989, while performing Made of Stone on television, there was a power cut. While presenter Tracey McLeod attempted to deal with the embarrassing moment, Brown could be heard in the background roaring: “The BBC are wasting our time! Amateurs! Amateurs!”

20. It is good family fun...

At 49 minutes long, the album, according to a 2010 survey, matches the amount of time the average British family spend together every day.

21. It helped kick off Madchester...

The album is widely considered the seminal record for the ‘Madchester’ movement, associated with the ‘baggy’ sound, baggy jeans and fishing hats.

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22. It first took on legendary status at Spike Island...

The band performed the record at Spike Island on the Mersey Estuary in 1990 to a crowd of 27,000 adoring fans. Dubbed the ‘baggy Woodstock’, it cemented the album’s popularity and inspired the 2012 film ‘Spike Island’.

23. It was the best album ever...

The record is seen as a pillar of British music. In 2006, NME declared it the greatest British album of all time.

24. Even Frodo likes it...

Waterfall, the the album’s fourth single, reached 27 in the charts. The song has been used in many TV shows and plays in 2005 football-hooligan film Green Street as Elijah Wood meets the boys.

 

The album led Ian Brown to say they were the most important band in the world

25. It led Ian Brown to say this...

“We’re the most important group in the world, because we’ve got the best songs and we haven’t even begun to show our potential yet,” he said in an NME interview in December 1989. If only he knew, the band would never produce an album of the same quality again.

26. It didn’t lead to a happy relationship with the record label...

Two years after releasing the album with Silvertone records, owned by Zomba Music Group, the band became entangled in a legal battle with the company. Various appeals and counter-suits prevented the band starting work on their second album until mid-1993.

27. It was not followed by a second coming...

Technically it was, but the long-awaited 1994 album, The Second Coming, released a whole five years later, struggled to live up to the huge expectation preceding it. Out in the same year as Oasis’ album Definitely Maybe, it reached just number four in the charts.

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28. It was the beginning of the seven year itch...

In April 1996, seven years after the album was released, Squire left the band citing musical differences. The group continued with their planned tour but reviews soon turned ugly with one describing Brown’s voice as ‘excruciating’. In October 1996, the band formally split.

29. It came almost a decade before Brown went to jail...

Nine years after the hit album, Brown was arrested for threatening an air hostess and pilot on a flight from Paris, and served two months in prison. Of his time in Strangeways, Brown told the Guardian: “The lads were beautiful, there’s an honesty in there. They were criminals, but they were honest.”

30. The Greatest....

The popularity of the band endures to this day. I Am the Resurrection was voted as the best ever song by a Manchester band in a recent poll by radio station XS Manchester, beating some incredible competition.

 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

1 hour ago, C-Man said:

The record is as good today as it was then -- and will be 30 years from now. Goddamn, what could've been ...

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/music-nightlife-news/the-stone-roses-album-facts-16211906

 

Listening now. I wasn't a fan in back in the day so I didn't know the follow-up was a disappointment-- I thought "Love Spreads" was one of the best songs I heard that year. That along with Zeppelin's arrangement of Travelling Riverside Blues are the two reasons I wanted to learn to play slide.

[Nuge 1992]

One of my favorites of all time.  And I feel old.

[hullabelew 3724]

Let's hear some shall we? 

Love Spreads:  

I LOVED She Bangs The Drums

 

[Blanton 170]

Outstanding album and fucking crazy they had this sound in 1989. 

Way ahead of their time...

[C-Man 27293]

23 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

Listening now. I wasn't a fan in back in the day so I didn't know the follow-up was a disappointment-- I thought "Love Spreads" was one of the best songs I heard that year. That along with Zeppelin's arrangement of Travelling Riverside Blues are the two reasons I wanted to learn to play slide.

So, what do you think? There are some good songs on "Second Coming" but the debut is so, so, so much better.

Edited May 3, 2019 by C-Man

[Dolemite 143]

 

[HenryJames 66227]

15 hours ago, C-Man said:

There are some good songs on "Second Coming"...

[Braff Zacklin 13670]

So I'll be that guy and post the low-hanging fruit ... because if it weren't for Guy Ritchie including this track at the end of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, I never would have been exposed to this excellent album even though I was an adolescent when it was released.

 

[Blanton 170]

Perfect intersection of music and sports 

 

[South Austin 52657]

Wore the fuck out of this album in college.

[South Austin 52657]

The Edge has credited The Stone Roses for inspiring some of U2’s sounds on Actung Baby.

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

On 5/3/2019 at 2:57 PM, C-Man said:

So, what do you think? There are some good songs on "Second Coming" but the debut is so, so, so much better.

Liked, don't love-- the kind of thing I would add to a Pandora rotation but I'm not gonna learn the songs or anything. Definitely gave me a nostalgia vibe.

[C-Man 27293]

On 5/5/2019 at 9:46 AM, Blanton said:

Perfect intersection of music and sports 

 

That was an awesome promo.